


a square of light, gloom-yellow through the trees

by lemmasyne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s01e22 Devil's Trap, M/M, Season/Series 01, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26795035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemmasyne/pseuds/lemmasyne
Summary: The cabin was dark and cold, and the floor creaked.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 78





	a square of light, gloom-yellow through the trees

The cabin was dark and cold, and the floor creaked. He sat on the edge of the bed in the brute awareness of physical pain until Sam came back in with a washcloth. “I’m fine,” he said, but Sam didn’t seem interested in hearing it.

”Clean your chest.”

The washcloth sat damply on Dean’s knee while he unbuttoned his shirt and used his knife to cut away his T-shirt. The wounds the fabric had stuck to looked like deep, open scratches, and while the pain was in the broken skin, he recognised the ache behind the pain that meant muscle damage and that was the promise of a different pain to come.

Sam was watching him. “How’s Dad?” Dean asked.

“He’s okay. He’s sleeping.”

“Yeah? Did you clean it?”

“Of course I cleaned it.”

The gashes were coming up clean and clinically gory now, under the washcloth. "Hey,” he said, “need some alcohol.”

Sam brought the bottle over with a fresh cloth, and loomed over him to watch him swab. Pain sang in the wounds, but it was good pain, it kept his mind off the beginnings of the feeling like he’d been run down by a semi. “Don’t know how Dad can sleep,” he said. “His leg that busted.”

“He asked for doxylamine.”

“We have that?”

“Dad did.”

“In the trunk?”

“Right,” said Sam, catching his eye, and Dean grinned.

“Whole-ass pharmacy in there. Was he mad?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

His tone was too encouraging — Sam clammed up. Dean had found the field dressings in his duffel and unwound the gauze before he said, “Of course. Of course he was mad.”

He sounded tired and long-suffering, but it was better than angry and bitter, so Dean was grateful.

He focused on wrapping the wounds neatly and not spooking Sam by staring at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” said his brother, slowly, considering what he was saying the same time as he said it, the way he sometimes did, because he was smart that way. “I think so. I think we’ll figure it out. Right now I’m glad we’re alive and that’s — the only thing that matters to me.”

Those words settled around him better than any blanket. “Yeah, well,” he said. “Me too."

It’s late,” Sam said. “You should get some sleep.”

“And you. Mr. Puffy.”

Sam made a face. “Is that _Arthur_?”

“Yeah. What d’you think I watched as a kid? _C.S.I.?_ ”

Sam ignored that in favor of moving closer to inspect his chest. He said softly, “Think you’re gonna sleep okay?”

“I’m fine. Don’t sweat it. And don’t give me a sedative either.”

“I’m not sweating it.” Sam was between his legs now, and he put one careful hand on Dean’s knee. “Can I—” he said. His eyes were bright, reflecting light from the candles. “Can I make you feel better?”

Dean gave up on the not spooking him thing and looked at him for what felt like a very long time, and Sam flushed, but didn’t look away. His hair was falling in his eyes, and behind the bruising the colour was high in his cheeks. “What are you asking, Sammy?”

“Exactly what you think I’m asking.”

It had started the year before Sam went to Stanford and had finished then too, on a sweltering day in July. It belonged to a time before things had changed, and Dean had so thoroughly reinterpreted his life in the light of its absence that Sam’s hand on his knee was a foreign object, a relic, of uncertain purpose and obscure meaning.

”You don’t need to do this.”

“I want to.”

“Well, you don’t gotta.”

Sam didn’t give any ground, but the uncertainty in his body was suddenly palpable.

Dean stood up. “Sammy,” he said, hearing the rasp in his own voice, and Sam stepped even closer, so close that Dean could feel the warmth coming from his body. The first brush of his mouth was soft and dry. Dean kissed with his eyes open, until Sam’s tongue brushed his, like a flicker of lightning, and he pulled away.

“Down,” said Sam, and when he sat down, Sam straddled him. His mouth touched Dean’s neck; there was a kiss, then a bite; then Sam’s hands were on his chest, spread wide across the clean bandages. He palmed Dean’s bare stomach, and Dean pushed his hand up under both his brother’s shirts, finding smooth skin.

“You’re cold,” he said, and Sam laughed, his teeth white in his bruised face.

“I’m fine.”

In the candlelight the hollows of his face were shadowed. Dean tugged him into a hug, hand in his hair, pulling his face down onto his shoulder. Sam was trembling minutely, and he held him more tightly, until he was still, pressing him against the gashes on his chest, against his heart.

”Time to sleep.”

They brushed their teeth side-by-side at the sink, Sam’s hand resting on his lower back, and while he unlaced his boots Sam checked the salt lines. Then as he pulled the covers over himself, Sam crawled in beside him, still in his clothes.

There were springs digging into Dean’s ass, but he didn’t care. His limbs felt like concrete, and Sam’s hand was resting on his neck.

”Candles,” Sam whispered.

“Fuck.”

“It’s fine, I’ll get them.”

As he came back across the room, the floorboards squeaking, Dean heard rain begin to fall on the tin roof. Sam paused at the foot of the bed and touched his socked foot where it stuck out from under the comforter. Then Dean heard him digging around under the bed, and one of the army blankets was laid over his ankles. The boards creaked again, and Sam was a black shape by his head, and then a big, cold body, his arm finding Dean's waist, their feet tangling together under the blanket.

It was cold, but in the cocoon of warmth around their bodies it was warm enough to sleep. Outside, meanwhile, the rain fell steadily, tapping at the roof like a long Morse code message, encompassing Sam’s regular breaths and his own quiet heartbeat.


End file.
